Faith, Policy and Liberation Theology in the Church and State

I speak today as a person whose grandmother was noted by one newspaper as the first ordained female Hispanic minister in New York City history, whose immediate family vacillated between being, at times, economically poor to lower-middle class. My particular ministry evolved out of serving hundreds of poor, at-risk Hispanic children in the Sunset Park area of Brooklyn, and my main influence in public theology came from an urban missiologist who typically votes as a Democrat and has politically progressive views. My doctorate in biblical worldview is from Bakke Graduate University.

Our local church of 29 years has had a large percentage of predominately low-income Hispanics that we have empowered with the gospel of the kingdom to be more economically prosperous. Also, I was the first person with a Caucasian background to be a member of the Joint College of African-American Pentecostal Bishops. Also, City Action Coalition, which helped lead the fight for biblical marriage for 10 years in New York City, had approximately 50% of our board members vote for Barack Obama in 2008. Thus we are bipartisan in our politics. Morally, many would consider me a social conservative; regarding policy I probably have mixed views some may consider moderate or center-right.

In my service as a leader, I am an urban practitioner with a call to expound on matters related to public theology by applying the principles of the kingdom of God to present-day church and culture.

The local church I founded 29 years ago has always been a multi-ethnic congregation—with approximately 40-plus nationalities—and has had great success in contributing to the dramatic quality of life transformation that Sunset Park, Brooklyn, a predominantly Hispanic and Chinese community, has undergone since the mid 1980s.

Thus my theology has been informed by a concern for the poor, and with a goal to break the cycles of poverty in the lives of the hundreds of families that we minister to in both our church and in our nongovernmental organization (NGO).

That being said, my conviction is that biblically, there are five primary jurisdictions God has set up in society through His common grace which must be understood in order to understand politics and policy.

All of these jurisdictions were meant to work together in harmony, without any of them overreaching and imposing itself unlawfully on the other jurisdictions or realms.

Since the book of Genesis, when Cain fled from the presence of the Lord after killing Abel (Gen. 4); through the tower of Babel (Gen. 11); and the four major kingdoms of the earth highlighted in the book of Daniel chapters 2, 4, and 7, we have seen humankind attempt to build an autonomous human government in which the state is all-powerful and overreaching, either under a tyrant (e.g. Nebuchadnezzar) or under collective wit and power (e.g. the Tower of Babel).

It seems as though whenever power is centralized too much into one of these five jurisdictions, it brings harm to the other four. Sometimes, as in the case of a criminal, one of the jurisdictions (the first as related to personal responsibility) abdicates its right to govern to another one of the jurisdictions (as when a person is arrested and held by the state, or when parents neglect or abuse their children, or when a church or business commits fraud or exhibits racist acts), then the state has an obligation to keep the peace, promote justice and punish the guilty party.

The word of God warns us in 1 Sam. 8 about what would happen when the king and/or the state becomes too powerful. As we can see, some of the warnings are relevant today in regard to the king and/or the state bringing our children into unjust wars and taxing the people 10 percent of their income. Whenever an entity charges as much or more than God, then it is setting itself up as a messianic state that wants to be lord over all of life and control every aspect, as we see today.

Your Turn

Please be considerate and respectful of your fellow posters. If Jesus and your mother would not approve of your writing, you should revise your comment before submitting.

Use standard writing style and punctuation. Complete sentences and proper grammar will help others understand you.

Do not use profanity, obscenities, abusive language or otherwise objectionable content (as determined by Charisma Media moderators, in their sole discretion). Comments should not harass, abuse or threaten another's personal safety or property, make false statements, defame or impersonate someone else.

Do not question others' faith just because you disagree with them. It adds nothing to the discussion and only causes strife.

Do not question why someone comes to this website just because they disagree with you or the content of the article.

Do not post personal information including phone numbers, email or mailing addresses, or credit card information belonging to you or others.

Do not include copyrighted content or other intellectual property that you do not own or have the explicit rights or lisenses to distribute.

Do not post, directly or through links, viruses, misleading, malicious or off-topic content.

Please consider the following statements pertaining to comments posted by you and other visitors to our website:

Appearance of comments, advertisements or hyperlinks made by other commenters on this site do not necessarily indicate or constitute acceptance of or endorsement of the products, companies, corporations, ministries, organizations or agencies in whole or in part by staff members and/or the members of the editorial board of Charisma Media.

Comments are not pre-screened before they post. Charisma Media reserves the right to modify or remove any comment that does not comply with the above guidelines and to deny access of your Disqus account to make additional comments to the website without any notice. If you have been denied access to comment due to a violation of these terms please do not create multiple accounts in an attempt to circumvent the system. The correct course of action is to request a review of your account status by contacting webmaster@charismamedia.com.

Charisma Media is not responsible or liable in any way for comments posted by its users.

If you believe a comment is in violation of the above guidelines, U.S. law or International treaties, or is legitimate "trolling" please flag the post or contact webmaster@charismamedia.com. Include a link to the comment, along with a statement explaining what you believe the violation is and any evidence backing your claim. Charisma Media moderators will consider your request and decide on the most appropriate action.

Protecting your privacy is very important to us. We will not rent, sell, or trade your e-mail address to any person or entity for any purpose. However, by subscribing you agree to receive occasional special offers on behalf of our advertising partners (they will not have access to any of your personal information). You can opt out of these third-party marketing emails at any time without affecting your newsletter subscription.